The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1887-08-31

God Made Man and Woman for a spe-
cifie Work and to Move in Particular
spheres - Woman sufragisfs Unfit to
Vote or to Keep House.
THE HAMPToNs, Aug. Woman
Opportunity was the subject of dis
course by the Rev. T. DE Witt Talmage,
ID. d., today, and his text: $50 God
created man in his own image, the
image of God created he him; male and
female created he them. ''-Genesis j.
%. Following is the sermon in full:
In other words God. who can make no
mistake, made man and woman for a
specific work and to move in particular
spheres-man TO be regnant in his realm;
woman to be dominant in hers. The
boundary line between Italy and Switzer-
land, between England and Scotland is
not more thoroughly marked than this
distinction between the empire mascu-
line and the empire feminine. So en-
tirely dissimilar are the fields to which
God called them, that you can no
more compare them than you can oxygen
and hydrogen, water and grass, trees and
stars All this talk about the superiority
of one sex to the other is an everlasting
waste Of ink and speech. A jeweler
may have a scale so delicate that he can
weigh the dust Of diamonds; but where
are the scales so delicate that you can
weigh in them affection against affec-
ton, sentiment against sentiment thought
against thought, soul against soul, a
man. world against "a woman world?
You come out with your stereotyped re-
mark, the man is superior to woman in
intellect; and then ! open on my desk
the swarthy, iron typed, thunder bolted
writings Of Harriet Martineau and Eliza
beth Browning and George Eliot. You
come on with your stereotyped remark
about woman's superiority to man in the
item Of affection, but | ask you where
was there more capacity TO love than in
John the disciple, and Robert McCheyne,
the SCotchman, and John Symmetrical,
the Methodist, and Henry Martin. the
missionary? The heart Of those men was
so large that after you had rolled
into it two hemispheres, there was room
still left to marshal the hosts of
heaven, and set up the throne
of the eternal Jehovah. / deny to man
the throne intellectual. I deny to woman
the throne affcctional. No human phrase
ology will ever define the spheres, while
there is an intuition by which we know
niltli a IiaIl - III Ills Itstllil anu When u
woman is in her realm. and when either
Of them is out of it. No bungling legis-
latre ought to attempt to make a defni-
ton or to say: This is the line and
that is the line" Ny theory is that if a
woman wants to vote, she ought to vote,
and that if a man wants to embroider
and keep house, he ought to be allowed
to embroder and keep house. There are
masculine women and there are efTemi-
nate men. Ny theory is that you have
no right to interfere with any ones doing
anything that is righteous. Albany and
Washington might as well decree by
legislation how high a brown thrasher
should fly, or how deep trout should
plunge, as 10 try to seek out the height or
depth of a wOmans duty. The question
of capacity will settle finally the whole
question. the whole subject. When a
woman is prepared to preach, she will
preach, and neither conference nor pres
bytery can hinder her. When a woman
is prepared to move in highest CONNER
cial spheres, she viii have great influence
on the exchange and no boards of trade
can hinder her. ] want woman to I'M
derstand that heart and brain can overly
any barrier that politicians may set up,
and that nothing can keep her back or
keep her down but the question of inca
pacity.
There are women, know, of most I'M
desirable nature, who wander up and
down the CONTEMPLATING no homes of
their own or forsaking their own homes
talking about their rights; and we
know very wen that they themselves are
fit neither TO vote nor fit to keep house.
Their mission seems to be to humiiate
the two sexes at the thought of what any
one of us might become. No one would
want to live under the laws that such
women would enact or to have cast upon
society the children that such women
would raise. But | shall show you this
morning that the best rights that woman
can own she already has in her posses
sion; that her position in this country at
this time is not one of commiseration,
but one of congratulation; that the gran
deur and power of her realm have never
yet been appreciated; that she sits to-day
on a throne so high that all the
thrones of earth piled on top of
each other would not make for
her a footstool. Here is the platform
on which she stands. Away down below
it are the ballot box and the congressional
assembage and the legislative hall.
NOultIl always HIS NOitU anu always
will vote. Our great grandfatlers thought
they were by their votes putting Wash
ington into the presidential chair. No.
His mother, by the principles she taught
him and the habits she inculcated, made
him president. 1t was Christian mothers
hand dropping the ballot when Lord
Bacon wrote, and Newton philosophical,
and Alfred the Great governed, and iona
than Edwards Numbered of Judgment to
come How many men there have been
in high political station who would have
been insufficient to stand the test to which
their moral principle was put had it not
been for n wife's voice that encouraged
them to do right, and wife's prayer
that sounded louder than the clamor OF
partisanship? Why, my friends, the right
of suffrage, as we men exercise it. seems
TO be a feeble thing. You, Christian
man, come up TO the ballot box and you
drop your vote. Right after you comes a
hberrine or a sot-the offscouring of the
street-and he drops his vote; and his
counteracts yours. But if in the quiet OF
home life daughter by her Christian de-
meanor, wife by her industry, a mother
by her faithfulness, casts a vote in the
right direction, then nothing can resist it,
and the influence of that vote will throt
through the eternities.
Ny chief anxiety then is, not that
woman have other rights accorded her
but that she. by the grace of God, rise W
to the appreciation of the glorious rights
she already possesses. This morning
shall only have time to speak of one
grand and all absorbing right that every
women mas, ana that rs 70 mike home
happy. That realm no one has ever dis
puted with her. Men may come home
at noon or at night, and they larry a
comparatively little while; but she, all
day long, governs it, beauties it, sancti-
fies it. 1t is within her power to make it
the most attractive place on earth. 1t is
the only calm harbor in this world. You
know as well as | do, that this outside
world and the business world is long
scene of jostle and contention. The man
who has dollar struggles to keep it; the
the man who has it not struggles to get
it. Prices up. Prices Down. Losses.
Gains. Misrepresentation. Gougings.
Undertakings. Buyers depreciating; sales
men exaggerating. Tenants seeking less
rent; landlords demanding more Gold
fidgety. Struggles about office. Men
who are In trying to keep in; men out try
ing to get in. Slips. Tumbles. Defalca-
ticns. Panics. Catastrophes. woman!
thank God you have home. and that
you may be queen in it. Better be there
than wear Victoria's coronet Better
be there than carry the purse of a prin-
cess. Your abode may be humble, but
you can, by your faith in God, and your
cheerfulness of demeanor, gid it with
splendors such as an upholsterer's hand